Harvesting Poverty

A rift is splitting the American farm lobby, separating those farmers that can prosper on their own and those that rely on subsidies, this editorial in The New York Times argues. This rupture has been catalyzed by the proposal to cap the amount individual farmers can receive in government aid, a move supported by many smaller farmers but feared by their larger counterparts. Currently, the editorial claims, 65 percent of subsidies goes to the largest 10 percent of farmers, while two-thirds of mostly smaller farmers receive nothing. “It's astonishing that a program can continue to get Congressional support when it hurts virtually everybody our representatives are supposed to be concerned about — small farmers, other taxpayers and poorer nations struggling to join the global economy,” the editorial says. The current system, it contends, causes overproduction and encourages industrial scale-farmers to accumulate land, inflating rents and depressing market prices. The editorial concludes that reformers must persevere to enact changes that will force farmers to "make cropping decisions based on program benefits rather than market signals.” –YaleGlobal